[Vanilla] Deity try - turn reports - Now after success with a guide!

[dwcole78]

Marked up the map with thoughts on city placement. I think on the whole Sana'a's location is fine, but as marcopolothefraud pointed out, it would probably have been better to settle with horses in the first ring. Agreed that the tile east of Hattusa is best for yields and long-term growth. Buktu pointed out settling northeast of Hattusa for iron. It would also act as a hard border and a buffer to protect Hattusa if you take suzerainty, though, good luck with Pericles as a neighbor... The third tile north of the capital would just fill in the border at this point.

View attachment 601975

I'm more interested, however, in the opportunities to the south that need to be further scouted out. Settling on the barbarian camp would have good yields especially the diamonds. The river south of the capital has lots of food to work the hills. Each city can place at least one +2 campus or holy site. If you settled the camp, you could just shift the first and third cities northeast one tile.

I'm somewhat conflicted over the city north of Hattusa. One worst case scenario would be you settling the city, Pericles taking suzerainty of Hattusa, his declaring war, and Hattusa razing the city. Has only happened to me once before!

Reiterating suggestions to improve tiles for eurekas, luxuries, yields, and scouting more widely for settling purposes. Also, are you familiar with the HUD ribbon for the leader icons? It can be enabled in game options. I find it useful as a reference for keeping up with military score. Anyhow, best of luck with deity!

The hud icon feels like cheating but if is a game option should probably turn it on. What do you mean by moving the first and third cities ne one tile? I assume I am not razing and resettling all ready placed cities? Also yeah at higher levels I have trouble finding the right balance between scouting and building cities. I used to build two to three scouts when I started out but at higher levels that became impossible as I lost city sites to AI to fast - so I build only cities now. Balance is hard.

 

[marcopolothefraud]

Well, if you're worried about losing city sites, Sana'a was a strange choice for a second city. That northeast patch between Cairo and Hong Kong isn't very competitive, and the resources in the northeast aren't as strong as the resources to the west or to the south.

Whatever. I don't think it'll be a mistake in the grand scheme of things. But Sana'a should ideally have a Monument or a Builder very very soon, though.

 

[Planktonic]

The reason faith is such a crapshoot on Deity is because you normally have to get incredibly lucky to snag a religion before they are all taken. You pretty much HAVE to find an early relic to get a pantheon that you want. You also HAVE to discover a natural wonder quickly to get the eureka for Astronomy. You also HAVE to find an early source of faith per turn (a city state envoy or workable tile). Even if that all lines up perfectly, you can still loose out to an aggressively religious AI like Russia or Spain.

Obviously this isn't a major concern to Arabia, which is guaranteed a religion. But it's worth noting that getting a religion on Deity is quite manageable if you prioritize it.

First, getting a pantheon has little to do with getting a religion. True, it speeds your path to Mysticism, which would allow you to get the card that gives 2 Great prophet points per turn. But on Deity, in my experience, if you're waiting for that, you'll likely miss out altogether.

Also, you need no early source of faith to get a religion- you only need a Holy Site to generate Great prophet points (the Holy Site itself will generate some faith of course).

On Deity, you need to research Astrology first, regardless of whether you have a Eureka for it or not, and then build a Holy Site ASAP, and then produce Holy Site prayers until you can be sure you'll get the GP points you need. If you can do this, you will almost certainly get a religion, although I have never managed to get the very first religion on Deity (somebody almost always builds Stonehenge first). If the founder belief you are interested in isn't Choral Music or Feed the World this probably won't matter too much and you can be satisfied with just getting a religion, not the earliest possible religion.

Also, the more I play, the more I'm appreciating the utility of the faith economy over even a gold economy, so I wouldn't undersell that either. My $0.02.

 

[dwcole78]

Obviously this isn't a major concern to Arabia, which is guaranteed a religion. But it's worth noting that getting a religion on Deity is quite manageable if you prioritize it.

First, getting a pantheon has little to do with getting a religion. True, it speeds your path to Mysticism, which would allow you to get the card that gives 2 Great prophet points per turn. But on Deity, in my experience, if you're waiting for that, you'll likely miss out altogether.

Also, you need no early source of faith to get a religion- you only need a Holy Site to generate Great prophet points (the Holy Site itself will generate some faith of course).

On Deity, you need to research Astrology first, regardless of whether you have a Eureka for it or not, and then build a Holy Site ASAP, and then produce Holy Site prayers until you can be sure you'll get the GP points you need. If you can do this, you will almost certainly get a religion, although I have never managed to get the very first religion on Deity (somebody almost always builds Stonehenge first). If the founder belief you are interested in isn't Choral Music or Feed the World this probably won't matter too much and you can be satisfied with just getting a religion, not the earliest possible religion.

Also, the more I play, the more I'm appreciating the utility of the faith economy over even a gold economy, so I wouldn't undersell that either. My $0.02.

huh interesting I would worry that would leave you with way to few cities early for anything other than a faith win but I don't use faith for great people purchase hardly at all so maybe that is a way to play I don't know.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

The hud icon feels like cheating but if is a game option should probably turn it on. What do you mean by moving the first and third cities ne one tile? I assume I am not razing and resettling all ready placed cities? Also yeah at higher levels I have trouble finding the right balance between scouting and building cities. I used to build two to three scouts when I started out but at higher levels that became impossible as I lost city sites to AI to fast - so I build only cities now. Balance is hard.

For the city placement, if you settle the encampment, which seems like a good spot, then here are the other tiles I would prioritize based on the map so far. The two above your city would have to be shifted to the northeast to make room for the new city, all of which is marked here.

Spoiler :

The ribbon certainly feels gamey, but I do find it helpful when building a military and finding excess gold among the AI. As for settling vs. scouting, I hear ya! Has happened to me as well. I usually default into two scouts and a settler, but sometimes even then, there just don't seem to be good sites for expansion. Plus, early game is like 400% competing priorities. Still, in this case with rough terrain, I would build another scout probably just to figure out where borders will likely fall.

 

[marcopolothefraud]

Saxo, these are great recommendations for the cities. 1 is certainly a strong location, and will serve as a launchpad of Hattusa, but none of the AI will settle that land any time soon - I would prioritize city spot #2 as well as #3 above it. I would also move it one tile southwest to accomodate city #3 being southwest.

City #2 would launch your empire to the south, and while we don't know much about the south, it looks like there's lots of fertile land from what we can see. I would probably settle this city first...provided you can muster up the military to defend it.

In my opinion city #3 should be 1 tile southwest, onto the stone, because this will draw the Gems into its second ring. (Plus, the tiles north of 3 are kinda garbage anyway). You should settle it before City #1 (and if your military is weak, settle it before city #2 as well).

City #4 is definitely a garbage location, and it's really only useful to deny Kongo access to that territory, as well as give you a source of Iron if you badly need one. (IIRC your Mamluks don't need Iron without Gathering Storm DLC, so you're all good.) If there's better land to the south, you shouldn't settle city #4 or #5.

City #5 hasn't been fully explored yet, but from the looks of it it'll be surrounded by (mostly) useless desert. It will require a lot of investment - a Holy Site, Desert Folklore pantheon, and the Work Ethic belief - to make it even a little bit worthwhile.

 

[vortical42]

Obviously this isn't a major concern to Arabia, which is guaranteed a religion. But it's worth noting that getting a religion on Deity is quite manageable if you prioritize it.

First, getting a pantheon has little to do with getting a religion. True, it speeds your path to Mysticism, which would allow you to get the card that gives 2 Great prophet points per turn. But on Deity, in my experience, if you're waiting for that, you'll likely miss out altogether.

Also, you need no early source of faith to get a religion- you only need a Holy Site to generate Great prophet points (the Holy Site itself will generate some faith of course).

On Deity, you need to research Astrology first, regardless of whether you have a Eureka for it or not, and then build a Holy Site ASAP, and then produce Holy Site prayers until you can be sure you'll get the GP points you need. If you can do this, you will almost certainly get a religion, although I have never managed to get the very first religion on Deity (somebody almost always builds Stonehenge first). If the founder belief you are interested in isn't Choral Music or Feed the World this probably won't matter too much and you can be satisfied with just getting a religion, not the earliest possible religion.

Also, the more I play, the more I'm appreciating the utility of the faith economy over even a gold economy, so I wouldn't undersell that either. My $0.02.

I'm not sure how you are managing to get a Prophet with noting but a Holy Site and prayer projects. Even with a super high production starting city, I don't think I've ever gotten a holy site up fast enough to get there on prayers alone. You might get lucky and snag the last one, but more often there are just enough Faith focused Civs to prevent that from happening. Thus the importance of snagging as many early sources of faith as you can. An extra 200 faith is often enough to push you over the line when prayer projects alone will not.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I'm not sure how you are managing to get a Prophet with noting but a Holy Site and prayer projects. Even with a super high production starting city, I don't think I've ever gotten a holy site up fast enough to get there on prayers alone. You might get lucky and snag the last one, but more often there are just enough Faith focused Civs to prevent that from happening. Thus the importance of snagging as many early sources of faith as you can. An extra 200 faith is often enough to push you over the line when prayer projects alone will not.

It's the Arabian civilization ability. Otherwise, yes, it's a challenge to get a religion on Deity, but in my experience, sometimes prayers/faith purchase can be enough.

 

[Planktonic]

I'm not sure how you are managing to get a Prophet with noting but a Holy Site and prayer projects. Even with a super high production starting city, I don't think I've ever gotten a holy site up fast enough to get there on prayers alone. You might get lucky and snag the last one, but more often there are just enough Faith focused Civs to prevent that from happening. Thus the importance of snagging as many early sources of faith as you can. An extra 200 faith is often enough to push you over the line when prayer projects alone will not.

Are you researching Astrology first, even before Animal Husbandry and Mining? This can make a major difference, and is part of prioritizing getting a religion on Deity. You can't depend on finding a natural wonder, or you'll likely lose out.

I usually go for a religion when I am planning to go for a science or culture victory (I almost never play for religious or diplomatic, and usually don't worry about religion for domination barring special cases). In such cases I will often choose Divine Spark as a pantheon; this is especially useful for getting a religion on Deity, as it allows you to accumulate 2 Great Prophet points per turn with a single holy site.

After your post, I started GOTM 115- a science victory game with America (Rough Rider Teddy, so no faith bonuses). I researched Astrology first; the holy site was completed on turn 26. I subsequently got a pantheon and chose Divine Spark. I worked two Holy Site Prayer projects to completion- a total of only 7 turns of production. I recruited a Great Prophet and established my religion on turn 49- as it happens the first turn of the Classical Era. No relic, no faith source apart from the holy site itself (which was +2), no need to faith-buy a Great Prophet. I was the second religion established (as usual, somebody else built Stonehenge).

Not difficult to do if you are actually making it a priority.

 

[vortical42]

Are you researching Astrology first, even before Animal Husbandry and Mining? This can make a major difference, and is part of prioritizing getting a religion on Deity. You can't depend on finding a natural wonder, or you'll likely lose out.

I usually go for a religion when I am planning to go for a science or culture victory (I almost never play for religious or diplomatic, and usually don't worry about religion for domination barring special cases). In such cases I will often choose Divine Spark as a pantheon; this is especially useful for getting a religion on Deity, as it allows you to accumulate 2 Great Prophet points per turn with a single holy site.

After your post, I started GOTM 115- a science victory game with America (Rough Rider Teddy, so no faith bonuses). I researched Astrology first; the holy site was completed on turn 26. I subsequently got a pantheon and chose Divine Spark. I worked two Holy Site Prayer projects to completion- a total of only 7 turns of production. I recruited a Great Prophet and established my religion on turn 49- as it happens the first turn of the Classical Era. No relic, no faith source apart from the holy site itself (which was +2), no need to faith-buy a Great Prophet. I was the second religion established (as usual, somebody else built Stonehenge).

Not difficult to do if you are actually making it a priority.

That is a fair point. I usually do pick up one of the other tier 1 techs before astrology. Assuming you aren't playing a civ with a strong tundra or desert start bias (and thus want dance or folklore), making Astrology the first tech and picking up divine spark could be an alternate way to an early religion. There are going to be some serious trade offs, you are almost certainly going to miss out on a classical golden age and your capital is going to be under developed, but it might be worth it in some situations.

I'm curious do you know who all you were up against? Would this still work with someone like Russia in the game?

 

[Planktonic]

That is a fair point. I usually do pick up one of the other tier 1 techs before astrology. Assuming you aren't playing a civ with a strong tundra or desert start bias (and thus want dance or folklore), making Astrology the first tech and picking up divine spark could be an alternate way to an early religion. There are going to be some serious trade offs, you are almost certainly going to miss out on a classical golden age and your capital is going to be under developed, but it might be worth it in some situations.

I'm curious do you know who all you were up against? Would this still work with someone like Russia in the game?

As it happens, this game features mostly naval civs and science civs, so nobody with a very strong religious focus.

But yes, I have used the same approach even with Russia (or Japan, or other civs with religious bonuses) in the game and it still works. In those cases I usually won't be the second established religion, more typically the third or fourth. The AI pretty reliably takes Feed the World, Choral Music, and Warrior Monks as the first three founder beliefs, so Work Ethic, Jesuit Education and Reliquaries are all usually still available.

Also, if you don't want to take Divine Spark as a pantheon, you can still get the religion but will likely have to run three, not two, Holy Site Prayer projects.

 

[dwcole78]

updates - sorry forgot about this for a bit and then life got in the way but this isn't dead! Gotten more interesting as found out Japan is very close to my north (east of Knogo) and they denounced me as soon as they saw me. Kongo then denounced me soon afterward. Soo I am building defenses now...south is definitely where cities going in future. Prioritizing building walls in north two cities and then settlers in capital after monument finished. Two or three more cities maybe before I am done with city planning though likely build at least one science and maybe one religion district during this time as wow am I behind in science. Thankfully and amazingly seem to be keeping up in social. Thoughts? Greece shot included just because it is funny and I had forgotten it. Nice to see a game assuming its players are at least somewhat educated enough to get a joke. Many would have found some way to explain it to you assuming its players to be dumb.

 

[Vargas1]

That's a good chunk of space below you for settling, which should remain available unless someone sneaks around to forward-settle you there (or there is someone further south across the desert). I would suggest trying to space it out so that you can fit four cities in the visible space in your last pic - I'd move the labelled city up a tile or two, which allows you put a second city south on the horizontal river and a third at the mouth of that river. Then you can put a fourth on the isthmus heading east (depending who is over there, possibly even on the tobacco riverfront.

If you do that, and maybe one to the west (would likely need to be non-freshwater with an aqueduct to the river or mountains), that would give you a nice strong core of 8 or so cities, grouped comfortably together (less important on vanilla since you don't have to worry about loyalty, but still helpful for regional buildings for IZ or EC and for things like moving around builders, etc.).

I do think you're right about wanting to build at least one campus fairly soon - you're going to be behind in science for a while no matter what, but you don't want to be so far behind that you're putting out warriors against knights and crossbowmen.

Since you're a civ who will have a religion (and want to spread it), and Greece is in the game, I would save up envoys for Yerevan and go out of your way to do their city-state quests - once you do start building holy sites and found your religion, the ability to choose which promotions to give your apostles will be extremely helpful. If you're going for a science victory, Hong Kong is a really good city-state to suze, but likely won't come into play too much until much later in the game.

 

[PiR]

Nice to see the land!

Try to get Eurekas to save science..
Plan your encampments nirth as well: they will attack.
Continue exploring: take advantage of small borders to visit land you won't be able to visit later.

 

[dwcole78]

Believe it or not I am still actually playing this (albeit very slowly now that I have couple part time jobs and I am playing good many cloud mp games which man are those fun). Updates ...

As can be seen from above Kongo and Greece got city positions I wanted did get one more out though. Rather than building settlers and getting these positions (or at least having a chance) I built walls as I was just too afraid of an attack ... seeing kongo take over Kengy with catapults before turn 100 was scary....

Science as above - I beelined for crossbows again scared of getting declared on now picking up ones below heading to libraries ..

Social policies heading to monarchy and then theocratic government

Founded a religion as above
Surprised at the amount of stuff I had to choose from especially in polytheism. Thought hard about getting mosques early but tithe is just to good that money is incredibly helpful.

Last two for fun so I founded the city to the far south and I got Kongo saying I settled to close to their lands...so I guess he claims the whole continent?

Social policies led to some hard decisions thought about putting on worker production increase earlier but needed other things more - also not sure about great scientist points - at this level can I get any? Great prophet points are of course worthless for me.

 

[PiR]

I would advise to develop your trade routes quickly.

 

[dwcole78]

I would advise to develop your trade routes quickly.

Really? Why? That wasn't on my agenda as something to do soon - does it make the AI less likely to declare war? It hasn't seemed to in my experience ...

 

[PiR]

I don't have experience with Vanilla, but I find your gold per turn very low for turn 75. It can appease the AI, yes, but also it will create roads, which are key when moving units. But most of all, for the yields it can provide. Check the "available routes" panel to see if there is any interesting?

 

[dwcole78]

Ok that all makes sense - I was going to prioritize building up units and defense and then city to the east along with religious units and buildings but trade routes for roads between cities makes sense. Likely put them between my cities first though that won't increase gold. As I spread my religion gold should increase. Any comments on the things i did in the post above?

 

[PiR]

I think walls and Crossbows are good for defense
In wildcard, maybe put another one, the +2 gold/trade route if you develop them or another, if you don't have campus running project it's unlikely to get a scientist with just that card.

Oh and for the roads you don't need internal routes, for example if you do Sanaa > Yerevan (just an example, it might be too far and not possible), then the cities on the way will get the roads too.